Bitef

BITEF POLYPHONY

Location: Rasa Plaovic Stage, National Theatre in Belgrade, Serbia Duration: 1 h 45' Price: 500 dinars Within the story about the little girl Dora we follow a personal destiny which on a broader scale becomes the metaphor about the possibility of individual freedom in the social environment presented in a highly original way. It is a moving story with many meanings. It tells about Eros, vital energy, discovery of sensuality... And also about restrictions, aggressiveness and brutality of the society. The play addresses the question of the social control which originates in the family. Most stagings of this play in Europe lay the emphasis on how the mentally retarded children are treated and their position in the social order. LUKAS BARFUSS was born in 1971 and grew up in Switzerland. He graduated in librarianship. As of 1997 he works as a free-lance artist, playwright and writer of prose works. In his plays Bärfuss asks very relevant questions plaguing the modern society and knows how to recognise and sense the cause of social conflicts, Bärfuss observes human relations as a scientist, through a microscope, with a certain detachment, without taking sides. His plays are always on the verge of the grotesque, "open" in form and seem to invite directors and actors to interpret them in many different ways. TANJA MANDIC-RIGONAT graduated in direction from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, class of Dejan Mijac. She has directed in Belgrade, Vrsac, Sombor, for BELEF and BITEF. She also has to her name the dramatisations of novels Lolita, The Dead Souls, The Possessed and Ch. Bukowski's stories. The production of Kiseonik (Oxygen) by I. Viripaev (Yugoslav Drama Theatre) won the TV Metropolis Award as the best production of 2005. She has written two collections of poems Misterija srecnog kontrabasa and Iz zivota ptica. Tanja Mandic-Rigonat: "I was attracted to the play by its subject, the story, the possibility to put together an interesting stage form, the possibility to say what I think about normality and the social health as notions, the mechanisms of manipulation. Who and how lays down the patterns of the socially acceptable /non-acceptable behaviour in different spheres of life. As to the form, the challenge was to find the key for the fragmentary dramaturgy which would be "vertical" rather than a linear stringing of scenes. A form of morality, social presentation of Dora's case, by imitating the collective position like a group therapy session (on the stage all actors dig in their heels in their niches in the walls, as if in a temple). When I solved the space in my head, I also found the key for an in-depth reading of the psyche and social games and roles."